Daily Archives: 10/23/2011

I’ve been reading George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series. As far as High Fantasy goes… I have to tell you, it is the best I’ve ever read.
The characters are well developed, believeable, and will do unexpected things. Trying to predict what will happen next is an unsuccessful effort. What happens to the characters will have you shocked, cheering, or saying “you can’t do that!”
I understand its. TV series on HBO. I look forward to getting it on DVD dome day.

Crusader Weaponry will be at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show November 19th and 20th. We will be doing some on the spot Glock tweaking, selling some Slipstream, and some training vouchers for the 2012 Training year. We’ll also record some Pod Casts, some Video, and I’ll have a few copies of Uprising USA.

So come swing by and visit with us. Saturday night, after the show, we’ll have to make some plans!

Lynn Thompson needs to be stopped. I don’t know if there is a Board of Directors there that can force Lynn out – but that’s just what needs to happen. He’s wrecking Cold Steel. When he does stuff like this, it just makes you want to kinda not ever get or carry anything else from Cold Steel.

That’s some amazingly bad stuff. Multiple cameras and a lot of production money went into making that. Wow. Walking fire… Searching fire… yeah that stuff is for fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Not self defense in a western country. This is just so bad that I have no words.

Kimber’s new little Solo sub-compact is developing into quite the nice little carry package. While the main competitor, the Kahr sub-compacts are just not measuring up anymore.
The best selling Kahrs are the CW series guns. These have a cast slide, polymer frame, and come with just one magazine… but they are only 400 bucks. The nicer forged steel P series guns are right up there in Kimber Solo price territory, but they do come with an extra mag. They are good little guns and I am quite fond of them… but the ones people buy are the CW series and we’ve had some issues with them lately. The new ones from the factory are real notchy, sticky, and sharp. Very unpleasant guns to hold and operate. They are hard to pull the slide back and even more difficult to drop the slide again… the fit an finish look fine on the outside, but the way they work… just very poorly. These CW guns are actually hurting the Kahr brand. Had to take a return on one this week on one I sold, and that’s just not cool. A CW45. Those folks are never going to look at buying another Kahr for the rest of their lives. And I can’t blame them. At that point you can’t try to talk them into the upper end Kahr pistol – because they look damn near the same. They just got turned off one to spend more on another that looks the same? Doesn’t work.
Then you pick up that Kimber solo. Whole other world. It’s like going from a Flinstones Kahr Car, sorry… to a Mercedes Benz. Smooth action like melted chocolate. None of the Kahrs can come close to that feeling. They could – but they don’t. Kahr persists in their sharp edged slide lock levers and sharp frames textures. It’s like you reward yourself with buying a Solo, and punish yourself with a Kahr… and I have to say that I hate saying that. Because I really do like Kahr! They are accurate, reliable, with great triggers… but they feel sharp and rough and are a hard sell.

Kahr needs to revamp their lines. New cosmetic lines, a more agreeable texture on the grips. The actions need to feel smooth and when someone – specifically women – try to press the slide release lever, that slide needs to drop with little effort instead of making their thumbs bleed. Round off the sharp corners on everything. Make it something you want to hold on to. You do that… simple reworking of existing stuff without any reengineering… then Kahr would dominate the CCW market and we could price those at 499 instead of 399. The upper end P-series… would be redundant. Kahr could dominate… they seriously could.

Remington has cancelled production on dang near everything with a Marlin name tag. Specifically the lever action rifles. The Savage knock-off X7 rifles, I believe are still rolling out the door. We’ve had no problem getting those. Just Lever Actions, and the Rep told us that most of the orders we had were cancelled because they not in production. This doesn’t make me very happy. The problem Remington is having is that all the guys that used to know how to build a Marlin Lever Action are all now retired or laid off or working someplace else. This is just the tip of the iceberg that I’m seeing here. They buy Marlin pretty much to get into the lever action business… and then ruin it. Yet Remington is still cranking out the Savage Clones. To me, that makes no sense. If I was Remington, I’d kill the X7 line completely and concentrate on moving Remington’s own Bolt Action rifles. But Remington can do what it wants… that’s fine. But I also don’t get why Remington has moved the Sendero rifle to the Custom Shop, which has a completely different Dealer Program. What was one of the best production guns they made, and one of the most popular out here in my area of operation… they go and hamstring it.
I can’t get the Marlin Lever Actions to sell and now the Senderos are going to be difficult… Great. No, really… You guys concentrate on getting that ACR Contract and ignore the Hunters that have made Remington what it is. That’s a good plan. Worked great for Colt.
Here’s the deal… if you guys can’t sort out production of a gun made since the 1800’s… sell Marlin to someone who can actually build the things. Springfield would be great. Lifetime warranty, aggressive marketing, customer service like Marlin has never had before, and custom shop work that’s top notch. That would give Springfield some serious Hunting chops in the industry. I’d love to see Springfield own Marlin.
I can get worked up about Lever Actions… I love them. I have always loved them. And Marlin has always been a favorite brand. Most of the deer I’ve taken was with a .44 Mag Marlin 336… So it has a solid place in my heart. And we can’t even get any of the Marlin pistol calibers. I could have sold a hundred this summer… instead, I sold none. Can’t sell it if I can’t get it. Come on Remington!